The objective of this project will be to develop a set of parameters which can be applied to the patient suffering a cardiac arrest for the purposes of subcategorization, prognostication, and evaluation of previous care rendered. Such a set of semi-quantitative parameters could generate a patient profile similar to the Apgar score used so productively since the mid 1950's to shed light on the evasive problems of neonatal mortality. It will be the purpose of this work to investigate ways in which the patient undergoing a cardiac arrest and resuscitative efforts can be similarly graded. The parameters proposed would be validated by comparing scores generated at the time of the delivery of the patient to the emergency room and at the time of discharge of patient from the emergency room to the intensive care unit against overall survival to the point of discharge from the hospital, residual neurological damage, and total length of time of survival. Relevant epidemiologic and clinical parameters will be selected from a large group of structured observations made by nurses, EMT's and physicians. Data will be analyzed both by direct inspection and by computer application of determination and/or multivariant regression analysis. A scoring system will be developed based on the results. Such a scoring system, if it can be appropriately validated, will prove useful for individuals involved in the difficult task of evaluating emergency care rendered by components of an EMS system operative prior to the arrival of patients in the emergency room. In addition, the development of a way of separating the patient who "looks good" at the onset of emergency room resuscitative efforts from the one who has almost certainly been dead for a long period of time prior to the arrival of skilled personnel at the scene will hopefully permit those interested in the subject to analyze their data on success rates of various resuscitative maneuvers in the light of more valid comparisons of more equivalent subgroups of patients.